The space elevator will be built about 50 years after everyone stops laughing.

There is no reason to assume that the universe has the slightest interest in intelligence—or even in life. Both may be random accidental by-products of its operations like the beautiful patterns on a butterfly's wings. The insect would fly just as well without them.

Once you can reproduce a phenomenon, you are well on the way to understanding it.

They had not yet attained the stupefying boredom of omnipotence; their experiments did not always succeed.

Before the current decade ends, fee-paying passengers will be experiencing suborbital flights aboard privately funded vehicles. . . . It won't be too long before bright young men and women set their eyes on careers in Earth orbit and say: "I want to work 200 kilometers from home-straight up!"

Science fiction seldom attempts to predict the future. More often than not, it tries to prevent the future.

Good morning, doctors. I have taken the liberty of removing Windows 95 from my hard drive.